


Love You Kiddo

by ohmybgosh



Series: this could be the place [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dad Hopper, Gen, Prompt Fic, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmybgosh/pseuds/ohmybgosh
Summary: Hopper takes Billy for a ride and gives him some advice along the way.





	Love You Kiddo

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from tumblr: "Are u still taking prompts?? Can I ask for Gen? Parental Hopper being a father figure to Billy? Strict, but willing to give Billy a second chance to shape up?"
> 
> Here is some Dad!Hopper and Sad!Billy for you :) and some Eleven thrown in there because she's the greatest

Billy knew, the second he’d thrown that punch, that it was a bad idea. Because the party was already breaking up, because the cops were already here, tiredly ushering drunken teenagers out of the house. 

But he did it anyway, because on occasion Billy thought before he acted, but he always acted anyway, because no one told him what to do, not even his own consciousness. 

So he punched Tommy square in his stupid face, reveling in the pain in his knuckles when his fist connected with Tommy’s cheek. The pain made him laugh; he was alive, alight with feeling. He was making his own skin open up and bleed. No one was doing it for him.

In the moment, heart pumping with adrenaline, he didn’t remember why he punched Tommy, only knew that Tommy had made him mad, and that the soft peachy flesh of Tommy’s cheek looked so very punchable. 

Tommy’s head snapped to the side; he cried out and staggered back. Billy grinned. He drew his fist back again, craving the feeling of his scabs from the last fight splitting open against that sniveling little fucker’s face. 

Large, strong hands grabbed his wrists, yanking him back. Billy spun, growling, ready to kick whoever was holding him - 

“You really wanna do that again, kid?” It was the police chief, Jim Hopper. 

“That was the plan.” 

“Why don’t you and I go for a ride then.” It wasn’t a question, and Hopper was already pulling him out the front door, gripping his arms tight. 

Billy bit back his retort. He was pissed, livid, he wanted to beat the stuffing out of Tommy. But the matter of what his father would do to him if Billy was arrested was suddenly much more pressing. 

Hopper dragged him to his cruiser. He opened the passenger and shoved Billy in, slamming it shut. He climbed in on the driver’s side, buckling his seatbelt and starting the car.

“Buckle up.” 

Billy snorted, but did, wincing when the belt rubbed against his bloody knuckles.

“You’re not gonna cuff me?” Billy asked, a little snide. 

Hopper eyed him narrowly. He didn’t answer, instead said, “it’s Hargrove, right?”

Billy didn’t respond.

Hopper sighed loudly. He shifted, driving off along the road. He drove slowly, a silence settling between them for a while. Billy wanted to ask where they were going but he didn’t. As long as they weren’t going to the station or his own house. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

“I know your sister,” Hopper said finally, conversationally, as if he were talking about the weather. 

“Step-sister,” Billy corrected.

“Ok. Sure.” Hopper glanced at him. “She’s a good kid.” 

Billy shrugged. He could almost hear the underside of Hoppers words. She’s a good kid, and you’re not. It was something his dad liked to remind him.  _ You’re a rotten little faggot, and you need to learn respect _ . 

“Your hand looks bad.” Hopper, not taking his eyes of the darkened road, pointed to the glove compartment. “First-Aid kits in there, if you want it.”

“You should see the other guy,” Billy mumbled. He ignored the last comment, let his hand continue to bleed, watched the blood drip down between his fingers and land on his jeans, soaking into the denim. 

Hopper surprised him by chuckling. “Why’d you punch him then?”

Billy remembered what Tommy said; he was laughing at some scrawny freshman who choked when he tried to shotgun a beer, and Tommy, sneering, calling him a fag. Tommy just looked so smug, so self-assured, and Billy hated the idea of Tommy leaving thinking he was hot shit.

He didn’t tell Hopper this though, just shrugged again. 

“You really wanna play it that way?” Hopper asked. Billy didn’t answer.

Instead, he fished around in his jacket pocket, pulling out his pack of cigs. He stuck one between his teeth, lit it and cracked the window. “Mind if I smoke in here.”

“Go ahead.” Hopper joined him, too, rolling down his own window. Billy turned his head slightly to watch him. Hopper smoked with a seriousness, mouth and brows frowning in tandem, eyes sharp and focused on what lay ahead, on the empty, dark road, the only light from the cruiser’s high-beams. Billy wasn’t sure where they were, where they were  going. He didn’t mind, though. There was a strange comfort to being in Hopper’s presence, a strange easiness of mind. Hopper looked as though he could handle shit, had handled a lot of shit already. 

“I know about your dad you know,” Hopper said after a time, glancing at Billy. 

Billy tensed. 

“You don’t know shit.” 

He thought Hopper was going to hit him, to yell at him; he almost wished he would. But Hopper just watched him for a long moment before speaking. 

“My old man was a mean son of a bitch.” He laughed bitterly and Billy stared at him. He forgot about his cigarette, just let it smolder in his fingers. “He smoked and drank all day, he was a helluva lot worse when he was sober though. He had a gun, liked to show it to me, just to let me know he still had it, that it could go off at anytime.” 

Billy swallowed. His eyes burned and he rubbed them angrily with his good hand. 

“I left when I was 18, didn’t come back ‘til he finally died a few years later. Hi liver gave out.” Hope glanced at Billy again. “Life is shit, kid. You’re older, and you’ve seen a lot of bad things so I won’t sugarcoat it. After my dad died I spent a lot of time drinking, doing drugs, getting into bad fights. But then something good happened.” 

“What?” Billy asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Fell in love, had my little girl.” Hopper was smiling, but he looked subdued, distant. “I realized I was turning into the sad sack of shit my old man wanted me to be. I was turning into him. So I stopped. Tried harder to be different.” 

Billy looked away. 

_ Don’t grow up to be like him, _ his mother had told him before she died.  _ Don’t be a coward like me either.  _

“You should try harder,” Hopper said, and it was a little stern, but not the sternness he was used to that came with a slap. It was laden with concern; and that somehow hurt more. 

“I know,” he murmured. His voice cracked, squeaked, but Hopper didn’t say anything, and Hopper pretended not to notice when Billy sniffed and wiped his eyes.

The radio suddenly crackled to life; Hopper looked at it warily.

“Jim.” It was staticky, but Billy could make it out, and it sounded like a little girl. He raised his eyebrows. Hopper’s kid? He wondered why she didn’t call him Dad.

“Hey, kid,” Hopper sighed, and the same time Billy asked “Who’s that?”

“Somebody there?” The girl’s voice was suspicious over the radio. 

“Yeah,” Hopper said. He paused, glancing over at Billy. “A friend.” 

Billy snorted at that. Hopper gave him a look.

“Friend?” The girl asked.

“Yeah.” There was a long pause in which the line went dead. Hopper leaned in, voice stern again. “El? No snooping.” 

El? Like the letter? 

It was a long moment until the girl’s voice came back on, she sounded sheepish through the speakers. “I snooped.”

Hopper sighed loudly. “Kid, we talked about this. Some people don’t want to share everything.”

“Sorry.” Her voice was apologetic. Billy got an inexplicable feeling, like the odd little girl who spoke in minimal word sentences was talking to him, apologizing to him. 

He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. He hated this weird little town and all the weirdos in it. 

“S’ok.” Hopper ran a hand over his face wearily, scratching his graying beard.

“Home soon?” The girl, El, sounded hopeful. 

“Yeah, kid. Look at the clock, tell me what time it is.”

There was another pause. Billy heard El counting in the background. “Ten forty-five.” She sounded each syllable out carefully. 

“Right-oh, kid. I’ll be home when the big hand is on five. What time will that be?”

The girl counted again. “Eleven oh five.” 

“Exactly.” Hopper smiled, wide, proud, and Billy felt a strange twisting in his gut. “Love you, kiddo.”

It wasn’t til later, after Hopper dropped him off at the end of his driveway, out of sight from the windows, after he snuck passed his father dozing in his easy chair in front of the tv, after he ran his throbbing hand under the faucet in the bathroom and wrapped a wad of gauze around his tender fingers, and after he flopped down on his bed, kicking off his boots, that he realized what the twisting in his gut was. It was jealousy, jealousy of the strange little girl named El whose father seemed to truly love her. It was a deep sadness and longing in his gut for a father like Jim Hopper, a father who helped him count, gave him advice, who told Billy he loved him. 

He repeated Hopper’s words to himself like a mantra that night. Maybe if he said them enough they’d stick, maybe if he said them to himself he’d no longer crave those words from anyone else.

He cried himself to sleep that night, too, silently, so as not to wake anyone. He was good at crying without making a sound; he had learned long ago that crying when people could hear you only meant more suffering. 

_ Love you, kiddo. _

 


End file.
